The Day After Tragedy
This was written last week … the day after a sudden, unexpected loss in my family.
A week ago, my grandmother, who we call Bobane, was painting, working in her yard and baking pies. She was, without any effort, cracking us up, creating smiles and always, always, making us feel loved. Yesterday we laid Bobane to rest. Seven months ago, we did the same with my grandfather, Ganggang. The end of an era has truly arrived for all of us, and the shock of that reality is settling deep into my soul. Yet this morning I woke up, got my children breakfast, helped them get ready and I drove them to school. I feel like I’m in a dream, watching myself robotically move through the motions, but incredibly, the world continues to turn on its axis.
And I feel something within me surging and burning and rising up and wanting to SCREAM, How can the mundane normalcy of life continue?! Why isn’t the entire world stopping and taking notice that one of our brightest shining lights has been extinguished? Doesn’t everyone realize the world is darker today than it was a few days ago?
And yet, I know this is how Bobane would’ve wanted it to be. This is how she carried on after her loss. This is how she would want us to carry on.
Yesterday I stood at her grave side, with a multitude of her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren and watched my children sob uncontrollably, unable to face the loss of such an irreplaceable figure, such a giant of faith in their lives. I watched the babies, who are the third generation from Bobane crawling around in the grass and the toddlers playing and giggling—knowing how much they would’ve made her smile. I watch my own parents, who although independent and strong, are nevertheless inching up in years. And this beautiful cycle of life terrifies me. I love it and I hate it. I embrace it and I recoil from it.
I am driving home from taking my kids to school, a normal everyday activity and all I want to do is cry. But I know if I let the first tear slip, then many more will follow and soon my vision will blur and my body will rack with sobs that will threaten to swerve me into the oncoming tractor trailers.
So, instead, I write. I take my phone and I dictate my thoughts through the wonders of technology that continued to astound Bobane until the end.
And I wonder, how do we face this? How do we accept this cycle of life that is inevitable—the fact that one day my parents will be Bobane and Ganggang. One day I will be them and my children will be the ones left alone.
How do we accept this reality?
I don’t have a full answer. My emotions are too raw. But even God and Jesus couldn’t bare our dying. They didn’t accept it and so Jesus gave Himself up to reverse it. Accepting it is so difficult and unnatural because we were made for more than this. And if we were made for more than this, then why am I not living like it?
It is the mundane activities, the monotonous normalcy when everything goes fine that lulls us to sleep and makes us forget the fact—this is not what we were made for. The everyday causes us to forget that the unsettled, restless feeling is there inside all of us because we are continuous wanderers in a land not our own. What is tragic awakens us from our slumber. It is an extremely rude awakening, but awakenings are important. If I sleep forever then this world will be my ultimate home.
Bobane and Ganggang lived their lives wide awake. They knew where they belonged, and they were good at making sure everyone they came into contact with knew where they ultimately belonged. They were torch-bearers, lighting the way for others. Their living constantly inspired me to live awake. But in their death, they have woken me up once again, unsettled me, make me homesick and restless.
We were made for more. I want to live like I know it.
May we always live with eyes wide open, fully awake, ever unsettled, ever wandering—knowing that we are strangers in a foreign land endeavoring to forge a clearer path. Like my Bobane and Ganggang, let’s illuminate the way home.
“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:18